


Symbiosis

by indefensibleselfindulgence



Series: i've got eyes to watch you sleep [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Typical Weirdness, Character Study, Jealousy, Other, Worship, adoration, set pre-99
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 07:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14711747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indefensibleselfindulgence/pseuds/indefensibleselfindulgence
Summary: Elias is never lonely.





	Symbiosis

**Author's Note:**

> i made this account purely for the username so i dont have to justify anything
> 
> not beta'd
> 
> also, and much more important, y/n elias is the person who goes to starbucks to order a trenti of nothing but espresso and everyone hates him because of it

  
The Beholding is not a loving god and Elias Bouchard is just fine with that.  
  
When he had first given himself to it, maybe he thought it would be. When he was so much younger then he is now, in body and in mind, back when he was blind to the world, very new to all of the business of gods and powers and Sight, maybe he thought The Beholding would love him.  
  
He knows now it doesn't. That it's so above base emotions and feelings that the ants in the archive all seem to cling too. It's a useless thing, expecting something like that from something as wonderful as The Beholding is on par with blasphemy, if he prescribed to that sort of thing.  
  
He loved it, of course.  
  
There was never any doubt in his mind, not even a second of second thought.  
  
When he was young in body and in mind, he was content with living alone. His parents weren't close to him, or. Well. He assumes they weren't. It's not like he can remember them now so- logically- they weren't close. He didn't have any friends to hold him down, and when he got to university, nothing held him down either. Any roommates he might have had were transitory- his entire life, before The Beholding was transitory.  
  
It made things solid. Real and tangible. It gave him the world.  
  
It made him whole.  
  
But it did not love him.  
  
Nothing like the loving exultation of The Desolation, not that he would know, of course, he never dabbled else where. He didn't need to. Didn't want to. But he had spoken with enough of The Lightless Flame to know what it was like. Had Seen the rapture on their faces when they cast themselves into the pyre to feed their god.  
  
Desolation was like a dog owner and its followers were puppies that constantly needing praise and assurance.  
  
Elias didn't need praise and assurance. He knew as well as he knew himself what The Beholding wanted. He could feel it push him where it needed him to go and he would do as he was told and he would do it well, because that is what The Beholding deserved.  
  
Even if it did not love him.  
  
Not like The Hive adored it's host. Prentiss had been wrong when she said that they wouldn't understand. Elias Sees just fine, that the Hive loves it's host like a person loves it's childhood home after years of misery away from it. The all encompassing adoration of a place with nothing but happy memories that time can not tarnish.  
  
The Hive loved it's host and it's host, desperate and miserable of attention loved it back.  
  
Elias didn't need anything returned. The Beholding was aware of his feelings, how could it not be, it was so aware of everything all at once. So it did not return them.  
  
When he was young of body and of mind, Elias had spent time thinking if The Beholding was even capable of loving him as much as he loved it.  
  
No, he knows now. If The Beholding had anything resembling love, it was more of a mutual symbiotic relationship. If even that. Does a man love the hammer he uses to build a shelf with?  
  
Elias is a well used tool. Content, even happy to be used again, and again, and again, and if he allows himself to be selfish he would say that The Beholding enjoys using him the most out of all of it's tools.  
  
He's reliable.  
  
And that's just fine.  
  
On a few rare occasions, The Beholding will give him the unnecessary gift of sleep.  
  
The first couple of times it happened, Elias fought against it, believing incorrectly that it was his body being greedy or, even worse, rejecting The Beholding's ownership. And he had hated himself for it, for being so weak and self absorbed. For not being able to be useful.  
  
Now, he knows better. When The Beholding gives him sleep, he is meant to take it. To enjoy it for however long it is offered. He has so few chances to close his eyes so when The Beholding let's him, he knows he's done all of everything needed to be done.  
  
He hasn't been sent to bed in a few years now, but once Jon, Jon and all the others leave his office, angry and scared and exhausted, his body almost slumps against Jonah's letter, crumpling it on his desk.  
  
A job well done.  
  
He's elated.  
  
He can almost feel The Beholding, the force of it's body or just it's arm or it's will pressing down on his shoulders and whispering sleep into his ear. So Elias gets up as straight as he can to pull the blinds on the windows of his office shut and to unfold the cot from the wall. All the while, the pressure of The  Beholding pressing down on his shoulders to rest rest rest.  
  
He tells Rosie that no one is to disturb him, lays down, and closes his eyes.  
  
His dreams were rarely discernible.  
  
This time, The Beholding gifts him understanding.  
  
Elias can feel it's irritation as his own and when he questions it, The Beholding supplies him with answers. It's weight pressing him flat to the floor of where ever they are. Here, Elias can not See. He's not meant to.

Obviously.  
  
The weight of his world on him is almost crushing. He can feel his bones creaking under the pressure. He can feel the way his face digs into the cold floor. He relishes it. Adores it. It grounds him in a way only The Beholding ever could.  
  
He loves his god.  
  
The Beholding tells him, and Elias understands the second the words leave it's mouth, that the Archivist needs to be punished.  
  
Elias agrees.  
  
Spending all of his time not working, _n_ _ot feeding_ , getting marked by other gods, endangering Beholding's property, all capital offenses, Elias tells it.  
  
The Beholding tells him to stop being jealous and tells him the way a tired school teacher tells a student to focus.  
  
Elias wants to insist that no, it's not jealousy, that obviously The Beholding's Archivist is not meant to carry any mark other then Beholding's own.  
  
The Beholding sighs and the weight lifts off of Elias and Elias knows he's made a mistake. But The Beholding forgives him, as it always does when he makes stupid ant mistakes.  
  
Elias apologizes and The Beholding tells him that it allows for whatever punishment Elias sees fit. Because it trusts him. And that's more then enough. More then Elias could ever ask for.  
  
His god does not love him.  
  
And Elias is just fine with that.

**Author's Note:**

> comments always appreciated
> 
> come [yell at me](http://iamalivenow.tumblr.com/)
> 
> also also i was in a car for five hours while i wrote this soooo


End file.
